NEWS
Social Media Tools on the Rise
Most organisations have at least one social media tool on their intranet, with blogs being the most popular Intranet 2.0 tool
30 Jan 2012

San Francisco | Social media tools are now present on most corporate intranets with 61% of companies reporting at least one social media tool available to some or all employees. The most popular Intranet 2.0 tools are blogs (75%), discussion forums (65%), instant messaging (63%), and wikis (61%) while social networking for employees and microblogging are on the rise at 43% and 42% respectively. These are the results of a new Social Intranet Study, released by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and Prescient Digital Media in mid December 2011.

The study examines social media use on corporate intranets and the magnitude, use, and popularity of social media by employees and executives. More than 1,400 respondents participated in the survey, representing organisations of different sizes and a diverse range of industries, from around the world. The results reveal rapid adoption of social media on the corporate intranet in the past year.

The leading need or reason behind Intranet 2.0 implementations is employee collaboration (78%), followed closely by employee engagement (75%). Of organizations that do not have at least one social media tool, 18% cite lack of executive support as the primary barrier to implementation, and the same number (18%) cite other, bigger priorities preventing them from implementation.

“While the popularity of social media tools on corporate intranets is rising, only about one-quarter of frontline employees and executives alike rate their intranet social media as good or very good. Dissatisfaction rates are even higher. Without a proper plan, adequate investment, and the requisite change management and communications, most intranet social media initiatives will fail.” says Toby Ward, President of Prescient Digital Media.

According to survey data, 30% of organisations rate their overall satisfaction with intranet social media tools as good or very good; 26% rate these tools as poor or very poor. Only 28% of organisations rate employees’ satisfaction with Intranet 2.0 tools as good or very good and 28% of organisations rate executives’ satisfaction with Intranet 2.0 tools as good or very good.

Other survey findings:
• Intranet content
Traditional corporate communication information dominates most intranets:
o 96% of intranets have communication information such as news and policies.
o 86% have company information such as organisational charts, company vision, values, etc.
o 82% have employee directories.
o 81% feature standards and compliance information.
o 70% have HR applications.

• Technology
The survey also explored technology platforms for intranets and found that Microsoft continues to dominate the enterprise collaboration or intranet 2.0 market.
o 55% of organisations with Intranet 2.0 tools are using Microsoft SharePoint.
o WordPress and Facebook (employee groups) are becoming popular Intranet 2.0 products and are currently used in 23% and 22% of organisations with at least one social media tool.

• Chief contributors
Not surprisingly, communication staff are the biggest social media contributors, followed closely by HR, marketing and IT:
o 79% of organisations with Intranet 2.0 tools have communication staff as regular contributors.
o 57% of organisations have HR staff as regular contributors.
o 51% of organisations have marketing staff as regular contributors.
o 49% of organisations have IT staff as regular contributors.

Download the complete survey report, more survey charts, etc. at the IABC News Centre.